Jewish Peace News (JPN) is an information service that circulates news clippings, analyses, editorial commentary, and action alerts concerning the Israel / Palestine conflict. We work to promote a just resolution to the conflict; we believe that the cause of both peace and justice will be served when Israel ends the occupation, withdrawing completely from the Palestinian territories and finding a solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis within the framework of international law.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

While the article describes research showing the connection between suicide bombing and occupation in places occupied by theUS, there is no reason to imagine that suicide bombings elsewhere (for example: In Israel/Palestine) aren't deployed for identical reasons.

For many of us this is hardly in the "breaking news" category. It might, however, be news for Islam/Arab haters, and there are manyof them out there! I'm often surprised, sometimes even shocked, by the people who feel comfortable sending out emails containingincredible venom towards Muslims etc.So, I'm hoping that readers won't dismiss this as self-evident, and send it to the people in their respective circles of friends and relations who could use hearing this, or who can help disseminate it further.Racheli Gai.

In this Sept 11, 2007 file picture, plumes of fire and smoke fill the sky after a suicide car bomb explosion hit fuel tanker trucks on the main highway south of Kabul, Afghanistan.In 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld commissioned a task force to study what causes Terrorism, and it concluded that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically, "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan" (the full report is here). Now, a new, comprehensive study from Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, substantiates what is (a) already bleedingly obvious and (b) known to the U.S. Government for many years: namely, that the prime cause of suicide bombings is not Hatred of Our Freedoms or Inherent Violence in Islamic Culture or a Desire for Worldwide Sharia Rule by Caliphate, but rather. . . . foreign military occupations. As summarized by Politico's Laura Rozen:

Pape. . . will present findings on Capitol Hill Tuesday that argue that the majority of suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.

Pape and his team of researchers draw on data produced by a six-year study of suicide terrorist attacks around the world that was partially funded by the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. They have compiled the terrorism statistics in a publicly available database comprised of some 10,000 records on some 2,200 suicide terrorism attacks, dating back to the first suicide terrorism attack of modern times - the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 U.S. Marines.

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100% of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

Pape said there has been a dramatic spike in suicide bombings in Afghanistan since U.S. forces began to expand their presence to the south and east of the country in 2006. . . . Deaths due to suicide attacks in Afghanistan have gone up by a third in the year since President Obama added another 30,000 U.S. troops. "It is not making it any better," Pape said.

Pape believes his findings have important implications even for countries where the U.S. does not have a significant direct military presence, but is perceived by the population to be indirectly occupying.

For instance, across the border from Afghanistan, suicide terrorism exploded in Pakistan in 2006 as the U.S. put pressure on then Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf "to divert 100,000 Pakistani army troops from their [perceived] main threat [India] to western Pakistan," Pape said.

Imagine that. Isn't Muslim culture just so bizarre, primitive, and inscrutable? As strange as it is, they actually seem to dislike it when foreign militaries bomb, invade and occupy their countries, and Western powers interfere in their internal affairs by overthrowing and covertly manipulating their governments, imposing sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands of Muslim children, and arming their enemies. Therefore (of course), the solution to Terrorism is to interfere more in their countries by continuing to occupy, bomb, invade, assassinate, lawlessly imprison and control them, because that's the only way we can Stay Safe. There are people over there who are angry at us for what we're doing in their world, so we need to do much more of it to eradicate the anger. That's the core logic of the War on Terror. How is that working out?

* * * * *

Akbar Ahmed, the Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, was on Bloggingheads TV yesterday with Robert Wright discussing convicted attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, and said this:

Take the case of Faisal Shahzad. He seems to be, if you put him in a category . . . he grows up with the reputation of being a party guy, a party boy in the tribal areas [in Pakistan]. . . . He then comes to America and all the pictures are of a modern young man. . . . He changes, but he changes, again, for interesting reasons. The media would have us believe that it's the violence in the Koran and the religion of Islam. But hear what he's saying. He's in fact saying: I am taking revenge for the drone strikes in the tribal areas. So he's acting more like a tribesman whose involvement in Pashtun values . . . one of the primary features of that is revenge, rather then saying I'm going to have a jihad or I've been trained by literalists . . . .

That is confirmed by mountains of evidence not only about what motivated Shahzad but most anti-American Terrorists as well: severe anger over the violence and interference the U.S. brings to their part of the world. The only caveat I'd add to Professor Ahmed's remarks is that a desire to exact vengeance for foreign killings on your soil is hardly a unique attribute of Pashtun culture. It's fairly universal. See, for instance, the furious American response to the one-day attack on 9/11 -- still going strong even after 9 years. As Professor Pape documents: "when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns . . . and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100% of the terrorist campaign." It hardly takes a genius to figure out the most effective way of reducing anti-American Terrorism; the only question is whether that's the actual goal of those in power.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

- The partition of Palestine (most recently into Gaza Strip; East Jerusalem; West Bank)- The partition of Iraq

In Iraq, the occupation is attempting "ethnic" partition.

See third item below: A statement issued this week (October 10, 2010) by the BRusselS Tribunal.

In Palestine/Israel, Israel's security forces are now drilling the concentration, in camps, and mass deportation to the Palestinian Authority of Palestinian citizens of Israel: On Sunday, October 10, military affairs reporter, Carmela Menashe, reported (in Hebrew; http://www.iba.org.il/bet/?type=1&entity=680286) that a large scale drill simulated "extreme scenarios of violent protests in the Arab sector following accords with the Palestinian Authority on population exchange. A detention camp for Israeli Arabs will be set up at Golani junction to receive detainees. The large-scale drill was administered and led by the Prison Services and included the military Home Command, the Israel Police Force, the Military Police, fire fighting forces and others." [Translation mine]

See first and second items below: 1) A statement issued October 10 by Gush Shalom; 2) Analysis and discussion by journalist and blogger Dimi Reider.

Rela Mazali

Ofer Neiman commented:

"It could be added that the report serves to justify the wider scope of the BDS campaign. After all, an official Israeli scenario indicates that the oppression of Israel's Palestinian citizens may even worsen as a result of political developments involving the dismantling of settlements."

This week Israel's security forces practiced the putting down of mass demonstrations and protests among Israel's Arab citizens and their imprisonment in a large detention camp to be established at Golani Junction in Galilee. The exercise was based on a scenario of the riots being provoked by implementation of Avigdor Lieberman's plan for "an exchange of populations", i.e. massively depriving Arabs of their Israeli citizenship. A week ago Lieberman voiced this heinous idea on the podium of the UN Assembly General and Prime Minister Netanyahu murmured some weak reservations. Now it turns out that the security forces are already preparing to implement it in practice, under the responsibility of none other than Labor Party leader Ehud Barak - the Minister of Defence.

It goes without saying that in a country having any pretence to be a democracy it would be unacceptable and unthinkable for the security forces to practice waging war against the country's own citizens. Together with the racist "Loyalty Oath Bill" which gained the support of the government, and with the demonstrative resumption of settlement construction in the Occupied Territories, it increasingly seems that Lieberman is the true Prime Minister, and that the government follows on his path, leading the State of Israel in big and rapid strides into the abyss.

October 9, 2010...11:30 pmIntroducing Ethnic CleansingNoam Sheizaf reports on his blog the police and army recently concluded an extensive drill, practicing response to riots that would follow the signing of a peace agreement covering "population exchange". Here is a verbatim translation of the very careful phrasing used by Carmela Menashe, the IBA's veteran military correspondent, from whose report Noam fished the info:

"The security forces completed yesterday (Thursday) a large-scale military drill simulating coping with Hamas attacks and riots by the Arabs of Israel following the signing of a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

"Our correspondent reports that among other [eventualities], the forces practiced radical scenarios of violent demonstrations in the Arab sector following an agreement on population swap with the Authority. A detention camp for the Arabs of Israel [sic] will be set up at the Golani Junction to absorb the detainees. The large scale drill managed and led by the Prison Service was attended by the Home Front Command, the Israel Police, the Military Police, firefighting forces and others."

Menashe's report also notes the Prison Service is prepared [sic] to release 1,500 illegal aliens from Israeli prisons to absorb new Palestinian detainees within 24 hours, although it's unclear whether this refers to "the population swap" scenarion or the one described further on, that of a Hamas Gaza-style takeover attempt of the West Bank. If it's the former, it's enough to make one wonder just how many people the authorities are planning to detain, if they'll need all normally available space in our detention system, 1,500 places more, and an entire new detention camp.

Noam writes:

I think we should not turn this into a conspiracy item. The fact that the security forces are training doesn't mean that Israeli leaders have such a plan…

I beg to differ. First, a drill involving so many forces is by definition following a plan hatched Israeli public servants and/or leaders. Second, bringing all those crowds costs enormous amounts of money in equipment, fuel, ammunition, and most importantly, important peoples' time. Third, it's worth noting that the other scenario practiced in the drill is that of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank – Israel's number one conflict scenario in that region, one which the army and the politicians have been speaking about and preparing for to no end, ever since Hamas pulled off the Gaza coup.

Much of our policy in grooming the Bonsai kitten President, Mahmoud Abbas, and much of our ever-tighter cooperation with the PA's security forces, are all centered precisely around preventing this threat from materializing. It would be good to have a full list of the scenarios in the drill, to see if only highly probable or also implausible but highly dangerous scenarios are practiced. But if the top brass are taking the possibility of preparing for transfer as seriously as they take the risk of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank, it means that what Israelis call רוח המפקד must be blowing in that direction very hard indeed; hard enough, as we see, to materialize into fairly detailed plans about who does what when they get the go-ahead.

The drill is also disconcerting for other reasons. As described by Menashe, it seems to assume that there will be a strong violent response from the Arab population, which means the expulsion-and-denial of citizenship "population exchange" will be forced, rather than agreed on (through, say, referendum.) The plan's apparent concentration on population, rather than territory swaps, evokes the possibility of not only fencing out entire Israeli communities in a "redrawing of borders", but of actual physical expulsion and removal.

The report on the drill comes hot on the heels of other disconcerting developments. The ludicrous "loyalty statement" resolution due to be passed by cabinet on Sunday is one; another is the prime minister's feeble response to Lieberman's calls for population swap. More ominous still were commentaries by the omnipresent "sources in the Prime Minister's circle", who told Haaretz the day after the speech that "Liberman's position has come up in internal discussions of the diplomatic process, but there is no official decision by the government of Israel on this position." Read that again: No decision on ethnic cleansing also means not rejecting ethnic cleansing out of hand.

A natural outcome

But rather than seeing this drill as a conspiracy or a monstrous aberration, I propose seeing it as a natural outcome. When the Israeli Right took up the two-state solution it did so with every intention of living up to what this solution promises to the Israeli Jews: A secure and exclusive, ethnocratic nation-state for at least a few more generations. The presence of a large, rapidly politicizing Palestinian minority is a much bigger threat to this vision than either the West Bank or Gaza. The current developments are perfectly reasonable outcomes of a marriage between ultra-nationalist values and the two-state idea: The important thing about the two-state, the symbiosis goes, is to secure Israel's Jewishness; how sovereign the Palestinian state is open to creative interpretation, but the important thing is that as many Palestinians are excluded from any influence and contact with Israel as possible.

Hence the frenetic anti-Arab legislation, aiming to limit the role Arabs play in Israeli politics and culture. Hence Netanyahu's insistence on Abu Mazen, a foreign diplomat, recognizing Israel's Jewish character; and hence the determination to resolve Israel's relations with its Palestinian minority through the most exclusivist and segregationist interpretation of the two state solution; most importantly, hence the exceptionally broad acceptance of this interpretation from right to "center Left," from Lieberman to Tzipi Livni. The beast of ethnic cleansing is well on its way to Bethlehem, and it's rapidly becoming normalized and legitimized – by prettier names – to the general Israeli public. We'll be seeing more and more of this careful, calculated slouch as the year goes on.

Update: So far, the only public official to take notice of the drill is MK Dov Khenin. Khenin, a member for Jewish-Arab party Hadash, has established himself the reputation of a diligent MK keen to work across our parliaments' multilple aisles to forward green, social and human rights agendas. He also ran two years ago for mayor of Tel Aviv, spearheading a coalition of Hadash, Likud and student and community activists, coming in second with third of the vote. The esteemed Yossi Gurvitz writes on his Friends of George blog that Khenin takes an urgent view of the matter:

MK Dov Khenin has requested an urgent discussion in the Knesset. Speaking to this blog, he said it would be a mistake to focus on the fact that Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch [in charge of the police, DR], is a Lieberman man; it seems, he said, much bigger than Lieberman and may involve Defence Minister Ehud Barak himself. Considering the fact the Home Front Command took part in the drill, this is a more than likely supposition. Khenin said he intends to demand explanations of Barak, but admitted that considering the latter's consistent avoidance of accountability to parliament (he strives for perpetual reticence, said Khenin), this will not be easy.

Gurvitz also notes that such drills were carried out ahead of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, with the target of the forces being, obviously, settlers. If I recall, these drills were widely publicised and used in psychological war against the settler community, hoping to persuade them not to resist. Here it seems the state is keen to keep whatever it's preparing under wraps.

We, the undersigned, defending the right of Iraq to independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, rejecting the attempts of Iraqi puppets promoted by the US occupation to trade the national rights of Iraqis and to institutionalise via census the criminal demographic engineering they have pursued by force, declare that:

From the first day of the US-UK occupation of Iraq, the occupation began to undertake a series of measures, directly or through its local allies, to destroy Iraq as a state and a nation and to partition it along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Today, the puppet government of the occupation and its Kurdish partners are trying to hold a population census in Kirkuk province whose aim is to give a permanent legal character to the criminal social engineering, ethnic cleansing and demographic changes that have been implemented under occupation.[1] This could unleash a full blown civil war across Iraq, and potentially lead to its partition and a consequent regional war.

In addition to the death of more than one million Iraqis, the ethnic cleansing and other means pursued by the United States, United Kingdom and their allies in order to implement the process of partitioning Iraq, in its cities and regions, have caused the forced migration of 2.5 million Iraqis out of Iraq and the forced displacement of 2.5 million others from their homes inside Iraq.

The ethnic cleansing suffered by the population in the provinces of Mosul, Diyala, Salahuddin and the Baghdad area, and most notably in Kirkuk and the so-called "disputed areas" — where the population is forced by various means, including systematic assassinations, bombing civilians, collective punishment, transfer, displacement, deportation and other crimes against humanity, to migrate only to be replaced by people from other provinces or even from outside Iraq — is a clear crime of destruction and part of the intended partition of Iraq.

The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and occupied its territory. This war in itself is a crime punishable under international law. International law, in particular The Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, and the Genocide Convention, explicitly prohibits occupying powers from instituting changes aimed at permanently altering the foundational structures of occupied territories, including the judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.[2]

International law considers the systematic transfer, deportation or displacement of population a crime against humanity.[3] Residents of affected areas, the Iraqi national forces, the displaced, and the majority of the people of Iraq declare this census null and void. It has no binding legal consequences and cannot and should not be used to support or justify the intended partition of Iraq.

We demand that no census be conducted before the free return of all Iraqi refugees. We demand that the question of ethnicity not be used to instigate the partition of Iraq and that it be removed from any census, now and in the future. We declare as fraudulent the justification under occupation of a census on the basis of long term planning in the context of a temporary and unstable demographic situation.

We demand that the United Nations and the Arab League and all governments, personalities, organisations and institutions support the demands of the people of Iraq by not recognising the results of this census, and by not assisting in conducting it. This census is designed to reward criminals for their crimes at the expense of their victims._________________________________________

Dr Ian Douglas, coordinator of the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iraqi political analyst and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal

Hana Al Bayaty, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal and the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq

Dirk Adriaensens, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal

Prof. Em. François Houtart, Participant in the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on US Crimes in Vietnam in 1967, Director of the Tricontinental Center (Cetri), spiritual father and member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre, Executive Secretary of the Alternative World Forum, President of the International League for Rights and Liberation of People, Honorary President of the BRussells Tribunal and senior advisor to the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, recipient of the 2009 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence

[1] Forced displacement and the construction of walled-in districts and their associated regimes, by contributing to demographic changes in Iraq, contravene international humanitarian law, including Article 49, paragraphs 1 and 5, of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949, and as such constitute war crimes.

[2] Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land, 1907 (HR); Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949. Occupying powers are obliged to manage the resources of the occupied territory under the law of usufruct only. This means that while they may use national resources as necessary to the upkeep of the wellbeing of the population in the occupied territory (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 64) they cannot profit from the use of such resources or award themselves partial or whole ownership of such resources. The US remains a belligerent occupier of Iraq.

[3] Article 7 (1) (d) of the Elements of Crimes of the International Criminal Court.

To endorse this statement, please send an email to PARTITION BY CENSUS

Saturday, October 9, 2010

On May 8th, Jewish Peace News posted news of the arrest or, more precisely, abduction, of human rights defender Ameer Makhoul, "Director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations – … in the dead of night, while he and his family slept in their home in Haifa." The arrest of this "Israeli citizen [and] … high-profile activist … [was] placed under a gag order … Israeli reporters, news outlets and even blogs" were forbidden from writing about it. On June 20th, JPN followed up with a letter from Makhoul, composed after he "had spent 3 weeks in prison without access to even pen and paper, not to speak of lawyers, family visits, due process, humane and legal conditions."

Makhoul has been in prison for five months now. Amnesty International has described his imprisonment as: "pure harassment designed to hinder his human rights work." His trial is viewed by many as "a message to Palestinian citizens of Israel ... formulated by extreme right wing parties in the current Israeli government" that have targeted Makhoul as "a legal, legitimate, and effective voice of a politically disadvantaged group – Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens. This, I might add, is the same government that is now poised to demand that applicants for citizenship (predominantly Palestinian ones) take an oath of loyalty to the "Jewish and democratic" state.

For further background and details on Makhoul's abduction, detention incommunicado, and on what the Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul describes as his "tortuous interrogation" – deprived of sleep and crucial medical care, see: http://freeameermakhoul.blogspot.com/.

For months now, Makhoul has been standing trial for alleged espionage, after being told in 2009 by Israel's secret services that if he failed to tone down his political and human rights activism, they would "tailor a file for … [his] disappearance and prolonged separation from his family." Trial sessions have been attended by representatives of the EU and the Netherlands.

The update below, from Janan Abdu, underlines the bogus nature of the charges against Makhoul, citing (among other things) the September 16th "testimony … of Yeshai Cohen, the expert police computer investigator who confirmed in court that he found no incriminating evidence against Ameer despite the fact that he had been under surveillance for one and a half years before his arrest including over thirty thousand phone calls."

The Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul is now "working to mobilize legal and medical international observers for the trial … and to raise funds to cover lawyer fees and related expenses." Detailing how solidarity and painstaking work has crumbled the original gag order and successfully challenged aspects of Makhoul's imprisonment and trial, they add, "We need your help to make our efforts even more effective … At this critical moment, we ask for your direct involvement in the campaign for his freedom. Ameer's trial is scheduled to proceed Tuesday October 5th. The time is now for you to get involved."

Rela Mazali______________________________________

From: janan abdu [mailto:jananabdu@gmail.com]Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 8:27 AMTo: Undisclosed recipients:Subject: The Police has no positive evidence that connects Ameer to the accusations against him

The Police has no positive evidence that connects Ameer to the accusations against him

Representatives of the EU and the Embassy of the Netherlands attend the court session to follow the proceedings closely

The last session of the case against Ameer Makhoul was held at the Haifa District Court on October 5, 2010. The testimony of the prosecutors' witnesses heard in this session continued to put the core grave accusations against Ameer in doubt and to shake their foundation. None of the testimonies in this and in the previous session succeeded in any way to connect Ameer to any of the accusations against him. None of the five witnesses, Arab youth and university students who, according to the prosecutors' claims were approached by Ameer to "enlist them in the service of Hizballah" had any hint of evidence that could possibly be interpreted as connecting Ameer to any of the accusations against him. Neither did the testimony of his family physician and his travel agent.

This is in addition to the failed testimony on September 16, 2010 of Yeshai Cohen, the expert police computer investigator who confirmed in court that he found no incriminating evidence against Ameer despite the fact that he had been under surveillance for one and a half years before his arrest including over thirty thousand phone calls from land lines and mobile phones at his home and office. Likewise, no positive evidence against Ameer was found in all the over ten desktop and mobile computers taken from Ameer's home and office and which remain with the Police to this day.

Of special significance was the presence at the court of such public figures as Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh, head of the Public Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul, Israeli Parliament member Dr. Ahmad Tibi and veteran labor leader Benjamin Gonin. This was in addition to representatives of the embassy of the Netherlands and of the European Union.

The next session of the court in this case was set for October 21, 2010.

--"Ameer Makhoul is a key human rights defender, well-known for his civil society activism on behalf of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. His arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. If this is the case, we would regard him as a prisoner of conscience call for his immediate and unconditional release." Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Hasan Abu Nimah describes how judicious distortion of language, based on "imported terminology, often crafted in Israel and disseminated by influential Western media, officials and think tanks, and by some Arab quarters and media under their influence", has distanced people from real understanding of what the Arab-Israel conflict is about.Since, writes Abu Nimah, "Israel has never stopped "begging" for peace and for unconditional negotiations with its "enemies" to reach it, it must be the Arabs who obstruct peace, because they put preconditions, such as a stop to settlement building and insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees which, according to Israel, is tantamount to ending its existence.""Peace talks", in search of "peace", don't only replace efforts to find justice, but actually help hide the fact that while endless talking is going on, the land in question keeps disappearing from under Palestinian feet, to be used for further building of settlements.

Following the signing of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, and while serving as Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations, I was invited to talk to a group of students in Manhattan. After the talk, I was approached by a young man who asked if he could follow up on some of the ideas I had presented.

"Why should Israel give the Arabs parts of its land in exchange for peace?" he asked quite sarcastically. I immediately realised that he was referring to a phrase that had gained much popularity at the time, "land for peace", and which I must have used in my presentation.

It was not that easy for me to explain that the land Israel was supposed to give in exchange for peace was actually Arab land occupied by Israel and the "land for peace" formula simply meant that if Israel agreed to withdraw from just the Arab lands it occupied in 1967, a comprehensive peace settlement of the historic conflict would be accomplished.

"You should have said it that way," my questioner said quite sternly, and added: "I think most of those who were present needed such an explanation."

He was absolutely right.

That happened 14 years ago, during which I have largely refrained from using the misleading term "land for peace". Its popularity, however, has remained. The term sounded, and still sounds, appealing, but in reality it is dangerous.

The departure from accurate terminology and the adoption of misleading formulas has been quite systematic and deliberate - a way to change perceptions of what the conflict in Palestine is about and how it can indeed be solved.

With the passing of time, the desired results were largely realised. Large sectors of people worldwide have been safely distanced from the real attributes of the conflict; and so have many Arabs, especially the youth.

The adoption of imported terminology, often crafted in Israel and disseminated by influential Western media, officials and think tanks, and by some Arab quarters and media under their influence, has contributed substantially to allowing such deceptions to take root.

One barely detects these days much mention of the need to end illegal Israeli occupation of Syrian or Palestinian land, in accordance with the strict provisions of international law as a necessary (if insufficient) condition for reaching peace. This kind of language is considered dangerous and harmful because it correctly places the blame and responsibility on Israel as the illegal occupier of Arab lands for decades.

So instead of clear language, we hear vague, comforting terminology such as the "search for peace". This language suggests that the problem is the missing peace - which perhaps was accidentally misplaced - not the missing justice and the missing rights, not the expulsion and near-eradication of Palestinian society to make way for the Zionist state, not the violation of international law and total disregard for all UN resolutions affecting Israel, not the constant violence and threats Israel has used to impose its will for so long.

The "search for peace", like the "peace process", disguises and ignores all such aspects, leaving one goal to be achieved: "peace". And since Israel has never stopped "begging" for peace and for unconditional negotiations with its "enemies" to reach it, it must be the Arabs who obstruct peace, because they put preconditions, such as a stop to settlement building and insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees which, according to Israel, is tantamount to ending its existence.

We have reached a state where facts and history have been turned upside down. Israel, which continues to illegally occupy large areas of Syrian territory since 1967, a great source for water supply and precious real estate for colonisation, tourism and wine factories, is viewed as the victim of Syrian aggression. Syria should not be allowed to import arms or to take any action in the direction of regaining its lost territory. This would be considered by the "international community" as a threat to Israel, a call for terrorism and a punishable crime under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.

This constant emphasis on the values of peace simply suggests that we do not want peace because we are not yet aware of the advantages and the great benefits of peace. We need to be taught such values, so that we appreciate the meaning of peace, just like the "civilised" Israelis do, so that we, Arabs, stop obstructing it.

On this basis, we have heard the constant refrain that if only Arabs taught their children "peace" instead of "hate" and "anger" towards Israel, everything would be just fine. The problem, we are told, is within us, and not with Israel's brutal aggression towards us.

Many speeches are often full of praise for peace, full of commitment to spare no effort towards achieving peace "that would benefit all the peoples and the states of the region with no exception". Our emphasis on peace is the password for getting into the good books of Western supporters of Israel, not because they themselves are so concerned about peace but because this is the safe language that replaces any talk about Israeli occupation and aggression.

Praising peace as a detached slogan is the litmus test for assured acceptability. It also is an easy escape. Similarly, everything that suits and serves Israel is labelled as "pragmatic" and "realistic", while anything that fulfills the rights of Palestinians or Arabs is termed at best "idealistic" and "unrealistic", but more usually "radical" or "extremist".

So, nowadays asking for Israel to respect human rights and comply with international law is considered a very "extremist" position. This is why those blessed as "moderates" by Israel and the United States rarely make any mention of international law.

The departure from accurate language has travelled so far that it has even led to the replacement of the United Nations by the ad-hoc Quartet (US, EU, Russia and the UN ), and by various peace plans and summits: "Annapolis", the "roadmap", "Camp David", the "Bush vision", "Sharm El Sheikh", the "Geneva Accords", the "Clinton parameters", the much awaited and so far empty Obama vision and the many other "understandings" along the long road of a "peace process" which will never be allowed to conclude.

The current "direct negotiations" have been resumed on the same vague and meaningless basis. And they will end like the others, in failure, because they do not address the need for justice; indeed they have been designed to avoid the requirements of justice. And on the ground, things will continue to worsen.